Axehead Lake

Axehead Lake is located at the corner of Touhy Avenue and River Road.

Boating information:

Not permitted

Fish in this lake include:

Largemouth Bass (14 inch limit)

Yellow Bass

Perch

Bluegill

Sunfish

Bullhead Catfish

Rainbow Trout (Stocked spring and late fall)

Pit Toilets

Hours: Sunrise to Sunset

Part of the Indian Boundary Division of the Cook County Forest Preserve District.

Axehead Lake is primarily known as one of the "inland trout" lakes for the State of Illinois' Inland Trout Program. Every April and October the lake is stocked with 1000-1500 rainbow trout that rance in size from 1/2 lb. to sometimes 2lbs. The lake closes for 5 days during the stocking to allow the fish to acclimate. The days of the "trout opener" and following finds the lake very crowded, especially opening day when it can litteraly be elbow to elbow with fishermen. The inland trout program is designed so that anglers can keep the fish with a daily creel limit of 5 fish. The trout usually last for about 2 weeks, with the majority taken in the first few days.

Axehead Lake also has a decent largemouth bass population.

No boats are allowed on Axehead Lake. The entire shoreline is accessible for fishing and in 2007 new fishing structures were constructed on the lake which are all nice places to fish. There are no paved trails but joggers can often be found doing several laps around this asthetically pleasing forest preserve lake.

The restroom facilities consist of a lone porta-potty between the parking lots. No sinks. There are two parking lots with plenty of parking - one on River Road south of Touhy and one on Touhy east of River Road. Overflow parking during trout opener accross Touhy entrance on north side preserve. There are plenty of restaurants and gas stations along Touhy Ave and River Road. The gas station on Touhy and Dee Rd has a bait machine as does the gas station on Touhy and River Road. The next closest place to get live bait would be Fish-Tech (formally Ed Shirleys) on Dempster in Morton Grove. Dick's Sporting Goods on Touhy in Niles usually has crawlers and redworms but call ahead first for availability.

Weeds

Steep drop-offs

casting 3" Slug-go's just above the weeds (below the surface) in various colors for largemouth bass. Other soft plastics and stick-baits have also been effective with this method. Most of the bass however, are in the 8"-12" range. There are larger largemouth bass - i've seen 18"-20" fish swimming around, but they seem to be few and far between.